SUNDAY IN THE PARK

Following a long evening the night before, we slept at the guest house one last time and then were picked up by Rakesh, who drove us into Delhi. Today, it was the reception hosted by the groom's family, held at the India Habitat Centre, again in an outside garden. The decorations were again spectacular, using lots of white flowers, in urns created by covering sticks and wooden bowls with banana leaves and tea leaves, and filled to overflowing with white Casablanca lilies, as well as white carnations. These were placed around the entire garden venue. There were also pergolas spaced around the garden, complete with comfortable couches, pillows and of course, the requisite propane gas heaters. Even though it was daytime, it was still terribly cold, and people were still fashionably dressed in Indian attire, but covering themselves with one or two pashmina shawls. Heather wore one of her mother's silk Salwar Kameeze outfits which looked quite handsome and she received many compliments. J.T. and I both wore traditional kurtas with pajama bottoms, but both with stoles and I even borrowed a pashmina to keep off the chill.

The food was served, after the bride and groom finally arrived, and it was wonderful - two distinct types, one was Cantonse and the other was Kashmiri. Fantastic tastes! It was a bit strange for us, at first, when we arrived, because we entered the garden and looked around to determine if we recognized anyone - a resounding NO! We walked around a bit and nodded politely to other guests, but still did not recognize anyone. Since our involvement with the wedding, up until now, had been primarily with the bride's family, I guess it was no wonder, except for the fact that somewhere, sometime, during the past three days, we must have met some of the groom's family and friends. Again, I asked Heather and J.T. if they recognized anyone or if, perhaps we were attending the wrong reception. At last, J.T. spied someone who looked familiar. It was the photographer, who had been working throughout the weekend! So, we guessed we were in the right place after all. Little by little, members of the brides family began to arrive, and they came over to us and enjoyed drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Sanjiv and Jyotsna and Olie arrived, as well, and we learned they had not gotten home until about 5:00 in the morning! It was no wonder they arrived at about 1:00 p.m.

While I was eating my lunch, I received a telephone call from Bani, who works for Sanjiv, advising me of bad weather coming on and expressing his concern that we should depart from Delhi right away, in order to avoid having to drive in dense fog on our way to Agra. We took his advice, called Rakesh and sad our farewells to the family and to the bride and groom. Although not having time to change into less formal clothing, we boarded the van and off we sped toward the city of the Taj Mahal.

After a four hour drive, we arrived at the Howard Park Hotel